


Guardian

by Crowsister



Category: DCU (Comics), Shazam! | Captain Marvel (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Becoming a Dad out of Spite, Canon Typical Violence, Gen, Redemption, Semi-Unreliable Narrator, Slow Burn, Slow Burn on Romantic and Platonic Levels
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-25
Updated: 2019-08-10
Packaged: 2019-12-07 17:06:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18237794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crowsister/pseuds/Crowsister
Summary: Teth-Adam is an emotionally mature (read: emotionally constipated) and proud (stubborn) man.Really, the Wizard was just insulting him by sending a child to fight him. He wouldn't play the old man's game: he'd fight Billy Batson when he was a trained, educated, and mature adult.He had waited centuries for this: what's eight more years?





	1. Humble Beginnings

**Author's Note:**

> This is my attempt at a "Black Adam as Billy's father figure" fic. The shorter ones I've read are extremely cute and I love the ones that feature Black Adam helping with history homework and the like. I wanted to do my own spin at it, but I am not good at short adventures when it comes to Dadly adventures. So, hopefully y'all will have fun with me as I slowly drag Teth down the path to being an actual good-ish person.
> 
> The general structure is that most of this is Teth telling this story to someone. That's signified with the dialogue not being all in Italics.

“You wish to practice your parents’ profession, child? Learn the secrets of this world and to record them?”

The child nodded, a shy smile spreading across his face.

“How can I refuse such a service?”

His smile widened and he settled down on the corner of the bed with writing implements in his skinny, small hands.

“It started a long time ago, here in Khandaq. Our hero was a slave to the ruling masses, his talent, natural good looks, and innate nobility wasted on mundane tasks such as mucking out the stalls of the stable and cleaning his master’s chariot. It was a simple life.”

* * *

 It was a miserable life. Teth was the first slave personally purchased by the prince of Khandaq on his thirteenth birthday. _“A wise purchase,”_ the prince’s mother crooned. _“That slave has strong shoulders.”_

He was swiftly brought to the summer palace, placed under the control of the stable master: a Bialyan man with too much fondness for his whip and jealousy of Teth for his education. It was so easy to needle his supervisor by muttering a word or two in Babylonian or reading an inscription on a chariot out loud—rub in the fact that he could speak more than one language and (more importantly) **read** _._

In all honesty, the evidence was piling up that Teth was better than all of his superiors- no, superiors was the wrong word. They were oppressing him, holding him back from the glory and honor he deserved. The only ones who didn’t see it were those who oppressed him.

His fellow slaves saw it as he secretly (secret from their oppressors) measured and redistributed their food so that everyone would get what they truly earned. They whispered thanks feverently, holding themselves small and folded together as their shoulders gleamed with their own blood. He was famous among his group for his staunch idea of fairness and decency, though some would whisper, _“His head is as big as the Sphinx’s.”_

There was one day when Teth was cleaning out one of the horse’s hooves, he said to his fellow slave, _“One day, Remen, I will have waterfowl on my dinner table every day.”_

_“That would require you to_ **_have_ ** _a dinner table,”_ Remen had replied from the stall over, chuckling under his breath. _“Perhaps it is for the best that you give up on such lofty dreams. They will only hurt yourself.”_

_“Aye, but I would rather have ambitions to sate me than having nothing and starve on more levels than just the physical.”_ His face screwed itself into a furrowed frown, full of sharp noble points. He put the horse’s hoof down, spreading his hand along its shoulder as he stood up. _“I will not be a beast of burden my whole life.”_

This was a promise to himself that he held close for years, remembering it as he knelt in front of the pharaoh and testified. Betrayed Khandaq, betrayed Kemet some would say, by turning in all the names of those with treasonous thoughts against the pharaoh. Teth, in front of pharaoh’s court with Nabu the Adviser and the strange, nameless old man, simply killed each and every one of those people with simply a word. All five hundred of them. And they applauded him, as they should.

_“Free this slave,”_ pharaoh decreed after deferring with his advisers and the strange old man. _“Give him a plot of land, seeds, and slaves.”_

And since pharaoh was the morning and evening star, so it was. Teth was freed, given the name of Teth-Amen to signify his goodness and heroic qualities to the throne, and let loose as ruler of his own section of land. He was visited by Nabu again and again, who asked Teth-Amen with piercing eyes as they looked over his fields to play droughts. They played for hours, talking about anything and everything. On days where Teth-Amen’s mood was good were the days where Teth-Amen learned much from Nabu: primarily philosophy with some tangents into politics and law. That is where he learned of Shazam, for that was the name of the strange old man that had been in pharaoh’s court that day. At the time, it had seemed to be idle gossip and nothing more than labeling all the important figures of the court.

Then, he was visited by Shazam. He was a strange man, now that Teth-Amen could see him up close. He was pallid, strangely so, with great white hair from the base of his head and his jaw. His eyes were blue and Teth-Amen wondered if he stole his eyes from the river. He was accompanied by a young woman with a friendly smile and eyes like fire, who had been introduced as Piras—his daughter. If they hadn’t been respected and loved by pharaoh and Nabu, Teth-Amen would’ve thrown them out of his property for looking like damned khefts. He played good host, however, giving them a fair chance to prove themselves as people and not khefts.

_“Thank you,”_ Shazam had said, _“for taking our sudden visit with good grace.”_

Teth-Amen had given him a nod, replying, _“‘Tis only fair to treat you as I would any other guests.”_

_“Would you be willing to host us for a week then? Our abode is being repaired from flood damage and I’m afraid we are homeless at the moment.”_ Shazam had smiled, his eyes twinkling in a way that made Teth-Amen’s breakfast swim back up his throat.

Teth-Amen had to take a moment to pull himself together. _“Yes, that would be acceptable. I can get someone to help you take your possessions and bring them here, to the guest chambers.”_

_“Thank you.”_ Shazam’s infernal smile had widened. _“You’re ever so kind.”_

Teth-Amen spent the week feeling like a bask of crocodiles was watching him. Like he had let Ammit itself into his home and it was watching, waiting for his heart to become heavy enough to make a good meal. Shazam and Piras would flutter about his property, never too far away from him like vultures floating about his head. When they took a fancy to, he would hold conversations with them unlike his conversations with Nabu.

Conversations with Shazam felt like they were hours long and would only occur to him later to have been conversations of Shazam fishing for _something_. What that something was, Teth-Amen was not sure and could not be sure, what with how that kheft-taken man navigated conversation like a crocodile did with a river.

Piras, on the other hand, was inflammatory. Passive aggressive comments left and right, bait to get him to rise against her words. He rose to the initial bait, but learned quickly. Learned to respond to her ploys with a dead tone, to not give her the fiery anger she was looking for. Either way, she seemed pleased and that frustrated him immensely.

And so, on the sixth day of the week, Teth-Amen was reaching the end of his rope when it came to peace of mind. The whip-favoring Bialyan would’ve been a better house guest than the two of these khefts! He was left chewing his lip often when no one was watching, glaring holes into his walls. He was in such a state when an outcry outside of his room stirred him from his brooding. He rose from his seat and followed the sound of yelling and cracking, his eyebrows furrowed and his hands folded with his arms behind his back.

One of the wheat fields was on fire. His mind immediately went to the why, swiftly swapping to the process of salvaging the situation. He grabbed someone as they ran past him. _“How did this happen?”_

_“I...I don’t know! There are people, still out in the field,”_ the man stuttered and Teth-Amen recognized him as one of the slaves who worked out in the field, his name was Gamal. Brutally honest, but lacked ambition. _“My brother’s out there, sir, I...I need to help.”_

He nodded. _“Gather whoever you can, use the buckets and do what you can.”_ Teth-Amen looked back towards the fire, watching it burn as Gamal ran off. He sighed, trying to think about how he would bounce back from this. He had enough wheat stored away to sell to the local count, but that money wouldn’t be enough to replace the crop in time or the slaves lost in the fire-

A child’s scream caused his mind to go blank. He looked into the fire, seeing a small silhouette of someone small wiggling under a pile of something. Teth-Amen’s feet moved before he could truly think, jumping into the fire and navigating through the narrow spaces between the burning stalks of wheat until he reached the child.

The child was stuck under a large bag filled to the brim with wheat. She may have been five or six years old, her life only just truly starting. She looked up at him with desperate eyes, trying to claw her way out from under the bag. His hands descended like Horus’s talons, ripping the bag away from her and picking her up in his arms. Teth-Amen held her as she shook, running out of the fire. He held her the whole time, his face held in statuesque calm as the child had her face buried into his shoulder.

The fire was put out eventually and he hunted down her parents only _after_ the fire was dealt with. Teth-Amen coaxed her to cough up her name. Khayat. He gave her to her mother, whose face was wet for reasons he wasn’t going to let himself think about. He made a note to send for a physician to look at himself, Khayat, and the other survivors.

He brought his mind to think about how he was going to have the farm survive the financial harm this fire would cause in the days to come.

Dinner that night was tense, admittedly because of his own frustration at the fire even happening to begin with. Shazam seemed to respect that, quietly eating the duck and stuffed dormice that was prepared that night. Piras, unlike her father, snuck glances at Teth-Amen and Teth-Amen caught every one of them. She’d grin sweetly before going back to meticulously dissecting the stuffed dormice in front of her. Carefully putting each distinct ingredient of the meal into a pile, eating them all one at a time before moving onto the next. Teth-Amen saw this as the bait that he knew that it was and held himself back. They would only be here one more day and night. Horus avenge him if the khefts made him fall before then.

* * *

That night, Teth-Amen woke to a gentle finger on his forehead. He sprung, his hand on a dagger. Piras stood in his room, smiling with an air of smug satisfaction and with glowing orange eyes.

_“Oh,”_ she purred, _“I knew you were a warrior in spirit, but to see it...brings me more joy than you can know.”_

_“What are you doing in my bed-chambers, you kheft-taken woman?”_ Teth-Amen asked, moving to bring the dagger to her throat. Or at least, he sent the command for his body to do so. But his body was frozen. Only his head could move.

_“Oh, you have no idea how close to the truth you are,”_ Piras replied. _“Father thought he could tame me, make me lesser than my true self by shackling me to his side for all these years. Just like he thinks he can do for you.”_

_“What?”_

_“He’s been testing you. Testing your character. But he’s done so in ways so meaningless and gentle that it would have taken him_ **_years_ ** _to truly determine your character.”_ Her voice pitches high and full of creaking like a door, unnaturally imitating the voice of an old man. _“We must respect his humanity, his mortality, Piras. We must give him the good start to his career that he deserves. Nobody deserves to be rushed as I was.”_ Piras laughed. _“He tries to control everything and everyone! Together, Teth-Amen, we can show him how little control he has!”_

_“You are a witch!”_ He tried to struggle, but his body wouldn’t move. Not even a muscle. _“Horus take you and your insane rambling-”_

_“Ungrateful! I came here with a present. You’re lucky that I will still give it to you.”_ Piras swiped her hand in the air and a circle of fire spread before him, a symbol that would haunt him for millennia to come. _“The pact is struck. The vessel is empty, but strong. Emptiness, lend him your stamina!”_

Teth felt his body shake, feeling parts of himself that he didn’t even know _existed._ Like grains of sand, but smaller, tinier, infinitesimal light _things,_ like he could feel the air itself inside his lungs, in his body. It all cooled, going from shaking to the same kind of freedom he felt when he first felt the breeze on his neck when his collar was removed by the pharaoh.

_“Divine Falcon, lend him your swiftness!”_

Something else coursed through him. It started with an unseen weight on his head then rushed through like a swift breeze, like a fan of feathers passing through him. He felt a hunger in him, one that he knew was **not his.** It was for movement, to feel his own wind against his face, to make such a sensation through his own speed.

_“Hidden One, lend him your strength!”_

His mind broke at this.

_“Architect of Truth, lend him your wisdom!”_

He stood, a paradox of emptiness and fullness. He overflowed with power that should not be his. His mind was blank, his ib torn from him with the utter strength of the Unknown, of the Hidden One, of the Mysterious Wind.

_“Disk of the Sun, lend him your power!”_

Against his magic binds, he shivered.

_“Guardian Serpent, lend him your courage!”_

Something coiled around him on multiple levels that he would not understand until later. It wound around him, slowly pulling him together. His ib pulled together from broken tatters, stitched together with serpent’s fangs and held in place with its scales.

_“With one word, we finalize the pact.”_ Piras touched his face, forcing his eyes shut. He could feel her lips on his ear, like worms. She whispered, _“Shazam.”_

His mouth betrayed him, repeating the word and the power that had been leaking into him hit him with a great force. Teth-Amen had no idea for how long he stood there, but when he came back to his senses, Shazam stood in front of him with his blue eyes full of regret, apology, and fear.

_“I am so sorry.”_

Teth-Amen gave a great, seven-fold shout. His voice was not the only one vocalizing their rage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ib: Conventional Anglicization of "jb", the part of the soul that contains the heart. The heart, according to ancient Egyptian belief and kemeticism, contains the emotions, mind, and intention of a person.
> 
> I'd like to note that I took a lot of inspiration from the novel Mara, Daughter of the Nile for this part of Teth's backstory. This is referenced directly with Teth's line about having waterfowl on his table every day.


	2. Khem

“I had no understanding of the power I had at the time. The acts I am capable of today? The ease of which I can summon lightning in my palm, contain it only to my being, turn it from destructive force to creative blessing? I could not have done that back then. It was a humble beginning.”

* * *

Teth-Amen learned what magic Piras had done to him over time with Shazam.

Shazam was the Champion of Magic. He was centuries, millennia old and, finally, he was looking for a successor. His plan was to evaluate Teth-Amen, to see if he could be trusted with the office and the powers that Shazam currently possessed. Trusted with protecting others against malign magical and mundane forces. The idea was to test him over time and, if he had proven worthy, educate him on what the position meant, what responsibilities he would have, and generally prepared him for the title and office.

But Piras, as her name suggested, set the plan aflame.

 _“I know not what powers she gave you,”_ Shazam said, _“but I shall help you adjust while we search for a successor.”_

And like that, Teth-Amen’s life was tossed to the storm. His property was to be maintained by one of Shazam’s attendants while he...adjusted.

* * *

The first several months, he spent mostly isolated. His power was strong and had a tendency to leak out of him in bits of lightning from his fingers, fire from his mouth, and ice from his tears of rage. Only Shazam could take his power without flinching.

There was a lot of research. Apparently, his patrons (as Shazam called them) were being incredibly silent. _“Usually, gods can’t help but chatter about everything and everyone,”_ Shazam said.

Some were child’s play to identify. The Divine Falcon was Horus, though Shazam insisted on Heru. Emptiness was probably Shu. The rest were harder to discern.

 _“Architect of Truth...is that not the domain of Thoth?”_ Teth-Amen asked as he watched Shazam scramble around a messy carpet of scrolls (a sight that made _something_ in the back of Teth-Amen’s mind _twitch)._

 _“Careful with names,”_ Shazam scolded, _“might get the attention of the wrong god and displease them. Given your...unique situation, it’s more likely to go poorly for you.”_  He hummed, stroking his beard. _“But...yes. I believe you’re right.”_

A voice whispered in Teth-Amen’s mind. It was full of irritation and indignation. _“Wisdom of Lumian and it’s showing.”_

Teth-Amen felt his jaw clench a bit. _“Shazam, you said the patrons spoke?”_

_“Oh yes, chatty and judgemental. Anything can set mine off and I’m honestly surprised yours aren’t the same.”_

_“Perhaps,”_ said the same irritated voice in Teth-Amen’s mind, _“because we’re not part Elder One, no tentacles here. And much better people skills.”_

 _“And yet,”_ Teth attempted to reply, thinking the sentiment in his mind.

 _“Oh, you son of a shoe!”_ the voice barked, irritation melting to surprise, delight, and a bit of annoyance. _“Tricked me! I shouldn’t have underestimated you.”_

_“No. You should not have. Who are you? Who are the others?”_

_“Men, always demanding this and that. Alright. I’ll tell you. On one condition: you solve my riddle on your own. Earn the beginnings of wisdom.”_

_“Acceptable.”_

Shazam poked his forehead. _“Teth-Amen? Are they speaking?”_

 _“Silence, please,”_ Teth-Amen replied to Shazam. To the voice, he asked, _“What is your riddle, patron?”_

_“There are two sisters: one gives birth to the other and she, in turn, gives birth to the first. Who are the two sisters?”_

* * *

“That’s _gross,_ Mr. Adam.”

“It was metaphor. Designed to test my ability to look beyond the surface and see what was underneath. Zehuti wanted to put that kind of thought exercise before me, knowing it was key to a great deal of my future. Tell me, what do you think the answer was?”

“Um...the snake that eats itself?”

“...no. But I...I suppose you’re closer than a lot of other potential guesses could’ve been.”

“How close was I?”

“Giving a physical distance for clarification of how close? I would say...two hundred meters.”

“That’s not close at all!”

Teth-Adam smirked. “Closer than you could’ve been.”

* * *

Teth-Amen grit his teeth. _“Do I have a time limit?”_

 _“No,”_ the god answered, voice gratingly cheerful. _“It’s just something that must be solved. Just remember: no asking for help. It must be an answer of your own making. And I’ll_ **_know,_ ** _Teth-Amen.”_ The god cackled. _“How can I not? I live in your mind now.”_

Teth-Amen took the challenge seriously. He did not tell Shazam of the exact riddle, refusing help on the matter. He wasn’t allowed in Shazam’s library proper until he mastered keeping the destructive powers he had _within_ himself. Once that’d been achieved with perfect control, Teth-Amen prowled through the library. He might have once marveled at the plethora of scrolls on every topic, many he’d never heard of before, but such a feeling would have only been a distraction.

 _“Oh, such big, strong thoughts,”_ the god would taunt. _“Truly impressed. Utterly.”_

 _“Silence,”_ Teth-Amen would reply back, every time a little more frustrated with each time this happened. It happened again and again, like shadows falling over a sundial. The god, whichever one they were, was fond of pestering him. It was like having Piras in his head, except Piras with a voice like a chattering monkey.

He looked at animals. He looked at magical creatures. He looked at gods. He looked at everything he could think of that could give birth. He found absolutely nothing that would cause the monkey-voiced god to say it was the answer.

Out of general frustration, Teth-Amen eventually resorted to brute forcing the problem. He sat one night in the library, a candle beside him as he read through a Greek dictionary.

His eyes trawled through the words, the silence of the library ringing in his ears lightly.

 _“Oh, you know Greek?”_ the god asked.

Teth-Amen raised an eyebrow. _“You are in my mind. Can you not sense what I know?”_

 _“Oh, nothing so invasive. Sure, we can access all your senses in this form, as long as there’s no magical interference, but there’s things we don’t have access to unless you let us. You just think_ **_really loudly._ ** _Like wow, you’re lucky the nearest telepath is on an entirely different planet. Oh, stop distracting me, you know Greek? What other secret languages or skills do you know?”_

 _“Babylonian, Hebrew, Kemetic, Khandaqi, and Greek,”_ Teth-Amen answered, keeping his internal reply’s tone flat. _“One of my first masters taught me. Had no use for a boy who couldn’t read his instructions. I became an experiment after that: he was a teacher of scribes and he would test new teaching techniques on me before his students.”_

_“Fascinating. Did he teach you sciences as well? Mathematics?”_

Teth-Amen snorted quietly. _“No. I taught myself some from whatever scraps I could find. You can interrogate me for what I know_ **_after_ ** _we are on equal footing.”_

The god fell silent and Teth-Amen focused on his search through the dictionary. He reached the N’s and slowly blinked. He put down the dictionary gently, laying out the scroll and looking down at it with his eyebrows slowly rising and a victorious smirk spreading across his face.

 _“Day,”_ Teth-Amen whispered, _“and night. It is a_ **_pun._ ** _ἡμέρα and νύξ. They’re feminine in the Greek language. The day gives birth to the night-”_

 _“-and the night gives birth to the day,”_ the god finished, sounding proud. _“Oh, this is going to be fun, Teth-Amen. I am Thoth. But you? You may call me Zehuti.”_

Teth-Amen raised a singular eyebrow. _“Why?”_

_“To respect the acronym, of course!”_

* * *

“He was really like that?”

Teth-Adam huffed. “Athena and Metron give knowledge gods a more regal reputation than they deserve.”

“Really?”

“With gods, it is important to remember that many are not simply a singular aspect. This is represented in Egyptian art through their gods being depicted with the body of man and the head of an animal. It was never meant to be taken as literally as many Western scholars and academics did. It was meant to represent a duality of the god, their connection to humanity and the force of nature they are. But many forget that Zehuti is not simply an ibis.” Teth-Adam gave a long suffering sigh. “Zehuti is also a baboon.”

* * *

Things picked up in pace after that. Zehuti introducing himself began a flood of the other five speaking to Teth-Amen.

Shu was soft-spoken and passive, seeming to prefer to let Teth-Amen drive the show with as little resistance as possible. He governed the aspect of Teth-Amen’s powers that protected him from the elements and even from sleep and hunger. Beyond his very short introduction, Teth-Amen hadn’t heard from him incredibly much.

Heru was a stern figure who spoke in very clipped sentences. _“Your form is off,”_ he’d say during Teth-Amen’s combat training exercises with one of Shazam’s guards. _“Zehuti, fix this.”_ Teth-Amen’s form flawlessly corrected itself, like he’d been trained as a soldier for **years.**

Amon spoke words very rarely and it was a fact of life Teth-Amen was thankful for. When Amon spoke words, it wasn’t with a single voice, but with countless voices all at once. It was more common for Amon to communicate using emotion, wreathing Teth-Amen in whatever he felt about any given subject (he had a pleased fondness for rams. Just rams, not ewes or lambs. Teth-Amen was beginning to understand that the gods were more complicated and strange than any priest would ever make them out to be).

Zehuti was...Zehuti. Chatty, a constant companion in his studies and his adjustment. He was just as likely to trick Teth-Amen into learning something as he was to simply _explain_ some of the new and inexplicable knowledge in his mind. If there was one question Teth-Amen asked that Zehuti seemed to hate with all of his being, it was _“Why should I care?”_

Aten didn’t speak. At all. Couldn’t speak. According to Zehuti, Aten didn’t have a mouth or any concept of speech. Or morality. Or really much of anything besides being a sun. _“All it can do is shine, shine, shine,”_ Zehuti sang in explanation, _“why did you ever have a shrine, shrine, shrine?”_ Zehuti huffed. _“You’re like someone took an Elder One than removed everything remotely_ **_interesting_ ** _about it away leaving only incomprehensible nonsense.”_ The only reason outside of Zehuti that Teth-Amen knew Aten was there was the presence of warmth in his mind that correlated with the weather: if it was a clear day, Aten would be at its warmest.

Mehen had a style that was a mixture of Heru and Amon’s. His voice was smooth, with a soft underlying hissing. He only spoke words about duty, but Teth-Amen could feel him in his mind: Mehen was the snake holding him together. Before he fell asleep at night (Shazam and Zehuti made him keep to the practice, despite him no longer needing it), he could feel Mehen the strongest: Mehen’s coils were their most obvious at night.

Teth-Amen and his patrons fell into a somewhat peaceful cohabitation. They understood each other: each side had demands and prices could be given for said demands. A bit of quiet could be bought with a bit of wine, some days. They all liked the taste.

It surprisingly took longer for Teth-Amen to adjust to his new form. Shazam’s property was sparse of reflective surfaces, but Teth-Amen one day caught sight of himself in the reflection of a pond Shazam kept in his gardens and did not recognize himself. If not for Zehuti telling him that was him and not some intruder, Teth-Amen never would’ve known.

He hadn’t realized he was much taller, for one thing. His whole frame was more defined. From his musculature reflecting a healthy, wealthy lifestyle that he had never _had_ to his facial structure becoming _sharper._ He was pleasantly surprised at finding his ears pointed, running a finger across the point.

_“Shazam lacks such ears.”_

_“Oh, of course he does,”_ Zehuti replied, _“this form is based off of_ **_your_ ** _desire for what you want to look like.”_

_“I have never wanted pointed ears like a jackal.”_

_“Not consciously, but the heart wants what the heart wants.”_

It took a week or so for Teth-Amen to adjust, but once he did, he was very pleased with the form. And with the strange black tunic he wore, with the golden bolt of lightning stretching across the chest. This felt...this felt right. He was _born_ for this.

Shazam understood what Teth-Amen was doing, having patience for his adjustment and how he mostly went about it.

For some things, there was not much patience.

* * *

One day, Heru had a question for Teth-Amen.

_“You fought for your liberation, yes?”_

_“Yes. I fought for survival every day, waited for my time to strike, then did so.”_

_“Ah.”_ Heru made a dismissive sound. _“The tactics of a coward.”_

 _“You know not the life of a slave,”_ Teth-Amen growled, both internally and externally. _“You are a god. You don’t know the cruelty of men, when men adore you.”_

 _“The cruelty of men? I am god of the sky, boy. I have seen more than you can comprehend. Cultures and traditions that you would sneer at. I have seen men eat cats and not be punished for it. I have seen them  drench their heads with mixtures to drain all color from their hair. I have seen them take and take and take without any kind of payment in turn. They replaced me with my own nephew. How soon will it be until they forget I exist and replace me entirely with that young whelp?”_ Heru grunted. _“I agreed to this contract because Piras promised me I would have relevance again.”_

Teth-Amen stood, looking out at the sky above them. He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. _“...what does it mean to be forgotten as a god?”_

 _“It means death,”_ Heru answered. _“It means all that was mine will be my nephew’s. While I had been already sharing power and the like with him, letting him learn what it means to be a god, this is beyond what I agreed to.”_

Teth-Amen furrowed his eyebrows. _“Piras may have tricked you into this contract, but I promise you: you continue to supply your swiftness to me and I will give you the relevance you desire.”_

Heru was silent a moment. But Teth-Amen could feel a touch on his shoulder. He looked and saw a ghostly man standing beside him, wreathed in sky blue magic. His right eye shown like the sun above them and his left eye had the gentle glow of the moon. The man’s face had a stern, hardened look to it, like it was carved from lapis lazuli.

Heru’s voice rung out in his head, _“Keep your promise, Teth-Amen, and not even death itself will catch you.”_

 _“You realize that I grant immortality too,”_ Shu quietly replied.

Heru disappeared, but Teth-Amen could hear the sound of strong winds in his head and Zehuti shouting, _“Heru, violence is not the solution to the problem, stop trying to smack Shu for information we all knew!”_

* * *

The unique energy in his chest that Teth-Amen could only attribute as Heru’s was tense the next hour.

_“Champion! Champion, there is a kheft attacking a Khandqi settlement, near the border!”_

The shouting came from the entryway, close to where Teth-Amen had been attempting to meditate. He felt a strange sensation of synchronization with that tense energy as he decided what he was going to do with the information.

He silently moved through the large house, leaning against a wall and listening in.

 _“A kheft? My wards haven’t detected a kheft in months,”_ Shazam replied.

Zehuti snorted. _“Wisdom of Lumian. His wards must be old construction and khefts can be crafty. We should do our own detection while he spouts platitudes.”_

Teth-Amen backed away. _“How do we do that?”_

_“Get an ibis feather and I can take care of the rest.”_

Teth-Amen knew Shazam kept a strange assortment of feathers in the library. He went there and grabbed one.

_“And now, outside. Draw in the sand with the feather.”_

Teth-Amen raised a singular eyebrow.

_“Oh, don’t give me that look. You have the knowledge in you to do the detection spell, you just have to think you’ll do it and your body will do it.”_

* * *

“Was he telling the truth? Or was he trying to trick you?”

Teth-Adam snorted. “You are catching on quickly to Zehuti’s ways.”

“I mean...you said he was a baboon and baboons are monkeys, right? My older brother says that monkeys are the worst.”

“He would know,” Teth-Adam replied, snorting again with a smirk. “That boy has the worst of luck with the creatures.”

“So? Did the spell work?”

Teth-Adam opened his mouth, but a snort from the office next door interrupted him. “Teth-Adam, don’t you dare embellish. Zehuti will be seriously peeved if you embellish.”

“You act like I care what he feels.”

“You do.” Her voice paused as the sound of rapid typing got louder momentarily. “Don’t let him fool you, kiddo. He pretends not to care about people on an individual basis, but he cares what Zehuti thinks. If he didn’t, his ego wouldn’t grow ten sizes larger every time Zehuti says he’s clever. Let’s see, we’re at the time that Shazam told you not to hunt a kheft and then you did?”

The little boy jumped up, notepad in hand. “Yeah! I was asking if the spell worked!”

“Well, I know this part of the story very well, so if Teth decides to _embellish_ again, I’ll call him out. Can’t write a proper report if _someone_ is trying to make himself look good.”

Teth-Adam rolled his eyes, hiding a small smile behind a hand. “What did I say about behaving like this in front of those not in the Inner Circle?”

“Oh please, the kid might as well be your godson, he’s definitely going to be Inner Circle when he grows up.”

The boy looked between Teth-Adam, sitting in the large leather chair in this sitting room, and the woman, visible through an open door to the office and sitting behind a computer. The boy’s blue eyes contained his mother’s skepticism. “So...the spell didn’t work?”

“It did,” the woman answered, “just not as magically smoothly as Teth here was gonna tell you. It was his _first_ spell, magic’s ridiculously complicated.”

Teth-Adam huffed. “Are you finished?”

“For now.” She sounded entirely too pleased with herself.

* * *

The spell relied on the nature of sand. Of its interconnected nature, of once being part of a great stone and now being part of a sea of sand.

 _“I wonder,”_ Mehen replied as Teth-Amen could feel his coils tighten as the spell was cast, _“what is our position?”_

 _“Really?”_ Zehuti asked as the sands twisted around Teth-Amen in geometric shapes, raising and falling like the tides of the Nile. _“You’re asking that_ **_now_ ** _?”_

 _“It determines if what we’re doing is a betrayal of our duty,”_ Mehen answered. _“Does our position make us loyal to Shazam, the Champion of Magic? Do we answer to pharaoh? Do we answer to the people?”_

 _“We have the powers of gods,”_ Heru answered, _“we are above pharaoh. We are what pharaoh pretends to be.”_

Amon emanated agreement as the sands vibrated and pulsed, shifting colors from pale warm to blood red.

 _“While true, that raises the question of what we should be doing with our future,”_ Zehuti replied. _“I had assumed, given Teth-Amen’s history, that we would be pharaoh’s pawn.”_

 _“Then do we answer to pharaoh?”_ Mehen asked.

 _“Focus on the task at hand,”_ Teth-Amen answered. _“For this moment, for this task, we are loyal to the people threatened by this kheft. Acceptable, Mehen?”_

There was a gentle hissing and, for a moment, Teth-Amen could feel the phantom sensation of snake scales against his throat. _“Yes.”_

 _“Good,”_ Teth-Amen answered. _“Zehuti, what does the sand indicate?”_

 _“Red is the color of evil. There is a kheft, I knew Lumian’s wards had to be outdated,”_ Zehuti answered, chattering with smugness. _“I know the exact location. Are you ready to test Heru’s swiftness on something_ **_real_ ** _, Teth-Amen?”_

 _“Yes,”_ Teth-Amen answered. He closed his eyes and inhaled slowly. He opened his eyes and couldn’t help but smile at the sight of being above everything. He looked in the direction Zehuti was nudging his mind towards and willed himself forward.

* * *

“Wait, did you practice before that or is flying just that easy for you?”

“Flying is just that simple for me.”

“Dad’s right, magic is cheating.”

* * *

Teth-Amen arrived on site to the kheft attack, finding the small village in ruins. Bodies littered the ground, torn to pieces.

 _“Oh this is an_ **_angry_ ** _kheft,”_ Zehuti supplied.

 _“Can we find where it is now before it hurts anyone else?”_ Teth-Amen asked, kneeling next to a torso and gently closing the eyes of the victim.

_“Easily. Inhale for me.”_

Teth-Amen felt that moment of synchronization again and inhaled slowly. Unlike normal, he could smell **everything,** but it wasn’t overwhelming. It was like looking at a shelf of scrolls: he could differentiate each scent, figure out what he wanted to focus on. And at the kheft’s sulfur smell, he stood and ran.

The kheft was easy to spot. It was a hulking red humanoid monstrosity, the body of a man and the head of a snake. Teth-Amen threw lightning at it and it flinched, giving an inhuman roar in return. It turned and saw him.

The two clashed. The speed was quick. For a time, it seemed that the two were evenly matched. But the kheft managed to tear through Teth-Amen’s tunic and skin. The claws were sharper than anything Teth-Amen could ever have imagined, causing his blood to run like the Nile across his skin.

Teth-Amen retreated into the sky, out of the kheft’s reach. _“Shu?”_

 _“I’m at my limits of what I’m allowed,”_ Shu replied. _“I won’t be able to do much more until the dawn.”_

 _“That’s_ **_hours_ ** _from now,”_ Zehuti shrieked. _“The kheft is still a problem_ **_now_ ** _. Ah! Possible quick healing spell, though you’re not going to like the casting components. Not as dignified as an ibis feather. Throw some sand in the wound. But we’re gonna need specific sand with a bit of carnelian in it-”_

 _“Is there any close by?”_ Teth-Amen asked.

_“...no.”_

_“Then it’s not faster than stalling for dawn,”_ Teth-Amen replied, looking down at the kheft. _“We have to keep its attention.”_

 _“How?”_ Zehuti asked. _“If we aren’t in direct combat, it’s going to-”_

The kheft dropped down to all fours, galloping away.

 _“-go to the nearest human,”_ Zehuti finished, sighing.

When Teth-Amen focused on the kheft, Amon sent a crackle of pugnacity. Teth-Amen nodded.

_“Teth-Amen, I know what you’re thinking and that’s-”_

_“Risky? We are duty bound as protectors,”_ Mehen hissed. _“We take the risk for others.”_

Teth-Amen chased after the kheft, forming lightning in his hands. He pulled his right arm back and threw the lightning like a spear. It streaked through the air before solidly striking the kheft in the back. The kheft looked up at him, looking insulted that he dared to stop the fight, only to resume it again when its back was turned. It tilted its head, its beady black eyes glittering with more intelligence than Teth-Amen gave it credit for. Then it raised its head to the air, flicked its tongue, then **bolted.** Teth-Amen followed it, throwing more lightning at it.

Amon’s emotions fluttered along his own: the joyous rapture, the determination, the need to protect. The god felt more emotion than Teth-Amen was letting himself feel as he chased the kheft.

Between Amon’s orchestra of emotion, Heru’s tense energy, and his own focus, Teth-Amen easily lost himself in the chase. His perception narrowed until Zehuti began to shriek.

_“Innocents! It’s heading for innocents, it knows what we mean to do!”_

Teth-Amen closed his eyes and made a decision. He dove at the kheft, gripping at its wrists as they tangled together. Unaware of the man a short distance away, watching them.

The man’s face contorted in horror before it settled into the battle-hardened look of determination. He ran back to the nearby house, shushing his wife and grabbing a spear. By the time he returned, the kheft was gone and Teth-Amen lay bleeding on the sands.

* * *

“Who’s the man?”

“He was Captain of the Guard for Acso, a now forgotten village in Khandaq. His name was Aryeh.” Teth-Adam smirked, subtly looking over his shoulder at the doorway to the office. “It was destiny that I met him, that day.” He tilted his head to the right, his hand quickly rising to perfectly catch the pen that was thrown at him. “Your aim needs work.”

“Your fight scenes need work. C’mon, on with the story.”

* * *

Teth-Amen woke later, finding himself bandaged and in a house he did not recognize. It was not the house of a rich man, but definitely not the house of a poor one either. He could see the household shrine, make out which gods were on it. Zehuti wordlessly chittered seeing one of his names on a wooden ibis sculpture and Heru grumbled something about his nephew.

Teth-Amen realized he was being watched and his head snapped to the source. A woman stared at him, looking like she had just been turning the corner and stopped in her tracks. She turned and disappeared around the corner.

 _“Oh, that is not the reaction you want a woman to have,”_ Shu commented quietly.

There was the sound of strong breezes again and Teth-Amen grumbled, _“Quiet.”_

The man – Aryeh – came from around the corner. _“You should lay back, your wounds-”_

 _“Are inconsequential,”_ Teth-Amen replied. _“Thank you for your aid, but-”_

* * *

“Did you really try to Black Knight your way out of being injured?”

Teth-Adam tilted his head, momentarily confused. The woman from the office dramatically recited, “‘Tis but a scratch!”

“Ah, Monty Python,” Teth-Adam replied. “I suppose I did attempt to explain away my injuries by saying they were not as bad as they appeared, but Aryeh was as stubborn as I was. A familial trait.” He tilted his head to the left and caught another pen.

* * *

 _“What is your name?”_ Aryeh asked, raising his eyebrows at Teth-Amen.

 _“Careful,”_ Zehuti replied. _“Giving your name may be risky. Even the lowest fey can take a name to find your ren_ _and use it for mischief and worse troubles.”_

 _“However,”_ Teth-Amen replied to Zehuti as he glanced out the window, _“my birth name is easy enough to find. Had I been born to Greeks in the same position as my parents had been, I would be Iota. I was just the ninth baby to be born in a year.”_

 _“Still,”_ Zehuti replied. _“Best to be cautious of strangers.”_

Teth-Amen looked back to Aryeh. He licked his lips before looking away again. _“It is better if you do not know.”_

All seven of the beings within Teth-Amen’s body were surprised as Aryeh chuckled. Teth-Amen could notice Aryeh sitting beside his bedside. _“It’s good manners. I have earned that much trust, at least, with saving you from your wounds and sheltering you, have I not?”_

 _“Oh I can’t tell if he’s a fey, a spirit, or just a very polite man,”_ Zehuti replied, sounding entirely too pleased to be telling the truth.

Teth-Amen flicked his eyes back to Aryeh and sighed. _“Teth-Amen.”_

_“Honor to meet you, Teth-Amen. Are you the successor to the Champion of Magic?”_

Teth-Amen could feel Mehen’s scales on his throat again and Amon pulsing with ambition. _“I am being considered for the position.”_

_“Explains the lightning you were throwing.”_

Teth-Amen raised an eyebrow. _“You are very calm about that.”_

_“I have fought alongside two blessed by Horus himself. When you see a man and woman with the wings of hawks out of their back, you start to learn to accept the strange and mystical aspects of life when you see them.”_

Teth-Amen asked internally, _“Heru?”_

 _“Not mine,”_ Heru answered, _“I know better. Perhaps my nephew is blessing random mortals. Such a waste of power sounds like something I told him not to do and just the sort of thing he would do.”_

 _“Well,”_ Teth-Amen replied, _“if I’m to stay still for now, perhaps you can tell me the story of these hawk people.”_

* * *

“Aryeh was an enthusiastic storyteller. He spoke of a man and woman who, at pharaoh’s word, swooped down at the evil raiders down south and striked at them not with talon, but with metallic maces-”

“Hawkman and Hawkwoman!”

“Indeed. Try not to interrupt.”

“I didn’t know you knew them back then.”

Teth-Adam inhaled slowly, rubbing the space between his eyebrows with a finger. “Why will become apparent. Now, where was I?”

“Talking about you and Aryeh gossiping,” the woman piped up from the office. “Even my grandpa skipped this part of the story, Teth.”

* * *

 _“It’s close to dawn,”_ Zehuti whispered. _“We can be healed. All you must do is shout Shazam, then Shazam again.”_

Amon radiated with annoyance.

Heru grumbled, _“I hate that our word of power is that man’s name.”_

 _“It’s better than his,”_ Zehuti replied. _“His is Vlarem. It’s a marvel anyone can pronounce that word.”_ Then Zehuti gave a great shrieking laugh at a joke that no one but him understood at the time.

Teth-Amen ignored him, slowly moving out of the bed and leaving out the door. He opened his mouth, but the minute he was outside the house, the kheft lept out of its hiding place.

 _“OH COME ON,”_ Zehuti shouted. _“You can’t risk it now- oh wait, yes, shout the word, shout Shazam!”_

 _“SHAZAM!”_ A great bolt of lightning struck down on the kheft above him, making the foul creature scream. It crackled down the limbs and reached him.

Suddenly, the presence of the gods in his heads vanished and he was simply man once more. He didn’t let the ache in his heart settle as he quickly shouted, _“SHAZAM!”_

The lightning hit the kheft again and Teth-Amen felt the strength and company he’d grown used to return to him.

 _“Marvelous!”_ Zehuti shouted, saying what they all felt.

Heru replied, _“Finish this.”_

Teth-Amen summoned lightning to his hands, using Amon’s strength to deliver it harder in a punch. Soon, the deed was done and the kheft lay down below in the sand.

 _“Now, to banish it,”_ Zehuti replied. _“Now, listen closely...”_

* * *

_“You hunted the kheft?”_

Teth-Amen looked up from the scroll in his hands. _“Yes.”_

 _“I told you not to go out and do battle. I told you_ **_specifically_ ** _not to hunt because you were too new with your powers?”_

Teth-Amen stood from his stool, towering over the old man. _“I am stronger than you think.”_

_“You have a contract drafted by my rebel daughter. We don’t know if it will falter-”_

Whatever else Shazam said was drowned out by Teth-Amen’s gods _roaring_ with anger. What words they spoke could not be deciphered, but they flowed from his mouth. He didn’t stop them, knowing that all seven of them were united in opinion: they were all _livid_ at the lack of faith.

Shazam took in this angry outburst with a neutral face. He let them roar for a time, before raising his hand and their ire. _“You have a point.”_

 _“Of course we have a point,”_ Zehuti grumbled. _“How can you expect to find the truth without us looking for it directly?”_

 _“How can he expect us to perform our duty to the people by hiding in luxury?”_ Mehen asked.

Heru asked. _“How can this old fool expect us to find our rightful place if we just stand in his shadow?”_

 _“Let me,”_ Teth-Amen replied to Shazam, _“be the hero I always wanted to be.”_

Shazam looked at him solemnly a moment. His face was inscrutable and his river blue eyes had a sparkle in them that Teth-Amen was unsure was malign, benign, or simply amused.

Teth-Amen squared his shoulders as Shazam gently brought his hands together. All six of the entities sharing Teth-Amen’s body with him were ready to fight back should the old man say no.

 _“Let’s see what kind of hero you are, Teth-Amen.”_ Shazam wove his fingers together, humming softly. _“I’ve decided that I want to see that.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ren is the conventional anglicization of “rn”, which is the part of the soul which has to do with “the name you were given at birth”. If you’re familiar with the idea of “true names” from fey-related folklore, it’s very similar. For example, Isis got Ra to give Osiris his kingly title through learning Ra’s ren and blackmailing him with it.


	3. Downfall (Part 1): Contract

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has been giving me absolute trouble (we're approaching the moment when Teth-Amen does the Big Bad in High Definition and I'm having anxiety about it), so I decided to cut it up for publishing since I know it's been a long ass time since I last updated. This does delay the modern meat of this fic a bit, but I feel like that's for the better. I do, after all, advertise slow burn on every level in the tags.
> 
> I feel like this bit is fairly good, with neat character building and dialogue. Teth's gods continue to be a delight to write, as does Mystery Lady.

“Now...what comes next is not my finest moment. With hindsight, comes wisdom. Had I the information that Vandal Savage had the ear of the Pharaoh, the information of who he was and his goals...things would have taken a different path.”

“Dad said you used to be pretty bad.”

Teth-Adam inhaled deeply, his eyes falling to his hands. “There is a reason why I was imprisoned in that amulet for centuries.”

* * *

After the kheft, Teth-Amen was allowed to act as Shazam’s second. This mostly consisted of listening to farmers, fisherman, boatswains, and people from all walks of life describe to him a problem they had been having and for him to identify if the problem was magical or mundane in nature. It was mind-numbing, at first.

_“The fish keep disappearing from our nets. There are no holes, no bad handling, just...they’re gone! I can’t keep my crew like this. It’s a curse, I’m sure of it!”_

That one had been solved by pointing out that the nets were left in for too short of time to catch any fish.

_“I don’t know how, but this man! He is avoiding his taxes! It’s supernatural!”_

It was through a very practiced charisma and foresight that the man had been able to avoid his taxes. _“To some,”_ Zehuti had said, _“high level of skill might as well be magic.”_

Eventually, a familiar face came to the Champion’s halls. A woman with dark eyes filled with the kind of hunger and sorrow that Teth-Amen had only seen in the face of a fellow slave.

_“Are you...are you still-”_

_“I am still Teth-Amen of Khandaq,”_ he answered, looking down at her with an unblinking stare. _“What do you need aid with?”_

_“My daughter, Khayat,”_ the woman answered. _“You rescued her from a fire in one of your wheat fields before the gods chose to empower you.”_

_“Aye, I remember her.”_ Teth-Amen closed his eyes, letting the little girl’s frightened face and wide, wild green eyes come to mind. _“Something has happened to her?”_

_“A priest came by your property. He saw her and said she was cursed, that her green eyes meant that she was fated to be sacrificed to Sobek.”_

_“Oh that is absolute malarky,”_ Zehuti grumbled in Teth-Amen’s mind.

Teth-Amen replied internally, _“...malarky?”_

_“Nonsense. Horse shit. Absolutely false to the point of point of anger-induction. Sobek doesn’t_ **_own_ ** _the color green just because he’s crocodilian in nature: he loves women, but not...to sacrifice a girl that young to him would be asking for trouble. Either this priest is an idiot or he’s trying to start something. Ask her what the priest looked like.”_

Teth-Amen opened his eyes and that made the woman shake. He asked, keeping anger from his voice, _“What did this priest look like?”_

_“He was a very tall man. His face was as clean shaven as any priest I’d ever seen. I...I think his hair was dark, it was hard to see it within his hood. Dark eyes.”_

Heru grumbled, _“She must have found him attractive, to stare into his eyes deeply enough to know their color. Are we to ask her for her romantic poetry next?”_

_“Sh, no, we’re trying to identify if he’s a known magical troublemaker,”_ Zehuti answered. _“Like a fey will be sloppy and make their eyes purple because they can’t help but be extravagant. Or, if it’s a god from another pantheon trying to cause trouble within our own, they might have hints within their human disguise. Like Zeus, the absolute drama storm, will always have a curly beard with blue eyes. Always. The other colors might change, but he can’t help but mimic clouds with his beard and his domain with his eyes. I’m comparing the details she said to known markers for such things.”_

_“And?”_ Teth-Amen asked them, looking at the ceiling in order to minimize the amount of trembling the woman was doing.

_“I know him only as an exile of the Blood Tribe,”_ Zehuti replied. _“An immortal mortal. Not an actual god, but a mortal who can cheat death. His goals are a safely guarded secret, but I know this man to be no fool.”_ His voice was laced with a rich undertone of hatred. _“Whatever he is up to, it will be no good for anyone. Ask her if he had three scars across his face, as if a great cat scratched him.”_

Teth-Amen relayed the question and the woman straightened in surprise. _“I’d forgotten, but yes! That was what aroused my suspicion.”_

_“And other things, I imagine.”_ Heru snorted.

Shu asked, _“Why do you suspect such things of her, Heru? Are you projecting your own desire of this man?”_

_“I have a wife! It just so happens that her domain and things she has said...Hathor has much to say on mortals and their weakness for large men with dark eyes and scars.”_ It was the first time Heru’s voice softened in Teth-Amen’s experience, when he spoke of his wife.

_“Focus! Focus, focus, focus!”_ Zehuti shrieked, his baboon-like nature leaking into his voice. _“The exile is here and, for some reason or another, looks to displease Sobek! The most pissy, temperamental, and pugnacious of us all! He would not listen to reason for ages, long enough to cause chaos for Set to feed from, for Ra to turn Hathor back into Sekhmet to give humans a fighting chance, and for the exile to get away with my Ibistick! Again!”_

_“Your what?”_

_“My Ibistick,”_ Zehuti answered. _“It’s MY artifact for MY own champions! Not for contracts like ours, but for my own servants. I have not had a personal champion in five years and it’s all that exile’s fault! He stole it, stole it from meeeeeeeee! With the right spell, I can track it and we can retrieve the artifact and the girl!”_

_“Ah,”_ the woman replied. _“Sir? Are you alright?”_

_“The gods have much to say on this criminal,”_ Teth-Amen answered. _“He is, apparently, a man who has earned their hatred.”_

_“And he has little Khayat.”_ She bit her lip. _“What should be done about this, sir?”_

_“He must be apprehended,”_ Teth-Amen answered. _“I will take care of this. Khayat will be returned to you.”_

_“He will absolutely not be apprehended.”_ Shazam exhaled sharply through his nose. _“The man you describe is currently pharaoh’s rising star advisor. His actions are sanctioned by pharaoh.”_

_“Then pharaoh is committing a crime against the gods,”_ Teth-Amen replied, crossing his arms. _“That man has an artifact stolen from Zehuti. He plans to sacrifice a young girl to Sobek when that will only anger him.”_

_“What proof do you have?”_ Shazam asked. _“Zehuti’s word?”_

_“He did not,”_ Zehuti muttered, _“just imply that my word is_ **_not_ ** _the truth. I may not be Ma’at, but I am the Architect of Truth! I build the house that Ma’at lives in, for me’s sake! I build the truth like humans build houses. I record it in my scrolls and teach it to humanity. Without my teaching, people would be lost! Lost, I tell you! Would you be surrounded by the sophisticated and beautiful Kemet you seem to adore, Shazam, if not for me? NO! You’d be an ancient Canaanite with the jabbering of demi-Eldritch gods in your head for your only company! You’d be MAD and we both know it.”_

Teth-Amen, listening to all of that, simply answered, _“Yes. And we both know that is the best proof we could have, given that Zehuti is the local knowledge god.”_

_“Yes!”_ Zehuti replied and Teth-Amen could hear the sound of rapid clapping within his head. _“I have dominion here! Not Lumian and his stupid octopus beak! Tell him, as Champion of Magic, that the theft of the Ibistick is HIS responsibility! The fact that he’s ignored me for five years is a travesty to his position! I don’t care if he invented the position, he did so because he was scared of only being a shepherd his whole life.”_

_“Technically,”_ Teth-Amen stated, _“the theft of the Ibistick would call for an investigation of this man, as the prime suspect.”_

_“...I suppose,”_ Shazam replied, his blue eyes twinkling with the same proud energy that made Teth-Amen want to snarl. _“And if the little girl goes missing during the investigation, well, runaway slaves happen all the time. And as Champion of Magic, I could have a chat with Sobek prior, to see if he truly wants this green-eyed slave girl.”_

_“He doesn’t,”_ Zehuti grumbled. _“I spoke with him already.”_

_“You speak so much, but do you ever stay quiet?”_ Shu asked.

* * *

“Well...that sounds like a pretty good setup for success. Save the little girl, catch the guy who stole the artifact. I don’t know how this could go wrong.”

“Easily. Deliberating with Sobek took time. By the time we got into Savage’s apartments...” Teth-Adam trailed off, closing his eyes. He stood up quickly, opened a window, and flew out faster than his single audience member could blink.

“Um...”

The woman from the office stood, walking over and putting a hand on the little boy’s shoulder. “Don’t worry about that. He goes to Khayat’s tomb every time he thinks about that moment. It’s a little memorial, over by where his old farmland used to be. We don’t advertise it as a tourist spot, but I think the urban exploration subreddit refers to it as Angel’s Landing. Teth’ll disguise himself with magic and tell Khayat’s story to anyone there who’ll listen.”

“Why?”

The woman sighed, moving her brown hair from her face. “Khayat’s the one death that he’s let himself feel guilty about, for the longest time.” She looked over to where Teth-Adam flew. “How about I tell you this part of the story? He won’t mind.”

The boy shifted uncomfortably. “You sure?”

“I’m sure,” she answered, giving him a small smile. “He’d probably prefer it. He doesn’t like talking about his fall from grace very much. He’s what us normal people would call a very _proud_ creature. While he’s gotten to the point through much kicking and screaming where he’ll admit what he did was wrong, talking about it in detail that way is still something he’s working on.”

“How do you know it, then? You weren’t there, right?”

The woman playfully ruffles his hair. “No, gods no. Me and your mom were born around the same time, neither of us were kicking around Ancient Egypt.” She hums. “Though I guess I did time travel for a bit. Didn’t show up for this though, that jerk threw me back a bit further. Teth’ll want to go over that particular mess when it becomes relevant in the story, he’s got a particular timeline for everything because Zehuti lets him have knowledge of the timeline before I got tossed into Ancient Khandaq and after. No, I know about this because of a mix of my grandfather telling me bits, Teth telling me bits, the Wizard telling me bits, and a goddess or two telling me bits. Took me a bit to stitch it all together, since all of them have their own spin on the big event.” 

“Danger of first hand reports,” the boy replies, sitting up a bit straighter, “the really accurate information’s got bias all on it.”

“Bingo.” She sat down in the big chair Teth-Adam had been sitting in, looking absolutely tiny in the large, black leather chair.

* * *

So, we set up the scene with our major players. There’s Teth-Amen in the middle of the room, kneeling in a ritual circle. There’s blood on his knees and hands and he’s cradling a broken, small body against his black tunic. There’s the Wizard, standing in the doorway with guards behind him. His impossibly blue eyes are wide, gaping like his dropped jaw. The Pharaoh in the hallway behind the guards with the Wizard and with more guards behind him, standing impossibly imperious at the age of 17.

And the two biggest players? Vandal Savage was locked into one of the other rooms in his apartments. Sobek stood above Teth-Amen, presenting somewhere between man and crocodile.

_“Teth-Amen,”_ Sobek rumbled, _“I know the desire in your heart. It burns like my own.”_

Teth-Amen looked up, dark eyes framed with sharp eyebrows and sharper cheekbones. His head was filled with a cacophony of his gods’ words, all of those opinions swirling in his head. He looked down at Khayat and gently closed her eyes with a finger.

* * *

“Khayat wasn’t his daughter, right?”

“Nope. Not related biologically at all. Unlike some other slave owners at the time, Teth wasn’t in the habit of...” The woman trails off, scrunching her nose. “Doing _that._ Besides, she was 6 by the time Teth owned her and her mother.”

“Then...I guess I’m having trouble figuring out the connection between him and Khayat.”

“Good question.” She leans back, sighing quietly. “I’ve got a theory. Teth’s never talked about why: looking at what he’s said, she was _just_ the daughter of a slave he owned. But that in itself is a huge message.”

“Huh?”

She answered, “It was common to sell slave children off. Keeping families together was radical. It was encouraged by several who were ‘advising’ Teth when he was first getting into being a landowner to split families, have babies raised by other slaves, then sell off the kids for profit. Do certain things to foster certain identities. Have the house slaves feel superior to the ones that worked out in the fields and stables.” 

The woman’s face clouded and she slid her glasses up her face, pinching her nose bridge. “In some ways, people haven’t changed. Paint’s just different. Anyway, Teth didn’t _do_ that. It’s still objectively _bad_ that he owned slaves, gotta stress that because you’re a very impressionable ten year old- don’t look at me like I kicked your puppy, I don’t care who your parents are, any ten year old is going to be impressionable. Anyway, he owned slaves which was gods awful, that part of that time period was the worst, but Teth didn’t play mind games with his slaves. It doesn’t excuse him from owning slaves, it just makes him seem less like an as- jerk than everyone else who practiced that. It’s like saying the fox is less dangerous than a lion just because it’s smaller, but they both have teeth.” 

She sighed, running a hand through her hair. “He didn’t force families apart. When push came to shove, his instincts were the girl and not a bag of wheat. People, not wealth.” She sighed again. “I think some part of him saw her, and I guess his other slaves to a significantly lesser extent, as a living symbol. Speaking from personal experience, the man’s got a habit of doing that.”

“A symbol? Of what?”

“Innocence? His own or the world’s, I’m not sure which. What I do know is that-”

* * *

Teth-Amen stood, holding Khayat’s body. He looked to Sobek, then the Wizard, and then the Pharaoh. The Pharaoh he had once thought fair and reasonable.

Teth-Amen inhaled slowly. He adjusted Khayat in his arms, freeing his left arm. He raised it toward Pharaoh and in one fast gesture, the Pharaoh laid dead. His face smoked from lightning and his eyes...well, the less we say about the eyes, the better we’ll hold onto our lunch.

Sobek faded to nothing, visibly, and Teth-Amen? Teth-Amen flew out the window with Khayat’s body. The Wizard was consumed with shame. His own gods spoke of his softness, his hope overriding his logic.

Storms usually start quietly, a gathering of clouds due to pressure. Teth, no matter what point in his growth, if he’s Teth-Amen or Teth-Adam, never does anything by halves.

He started by going back to his farm and going back to that field where he saved her from the fire. Zehuti told him the exact spot where Teth-Amen had scooped her up initially and he buried her with his bare hands and some magic. He gave her a pharaoh’s burial tomb, magically pulling her tomb together through some kind of synchronization with Zehuti. Sometimes, when you’ve got that kind of fancy divine contract, you and the bit of the god inside you sync up with what you both want and you become more of a conduit. Work on only instinct and divine nudging. Zehuti’s why Angel’s Landing has a bunch of personal details of Khayat: the non-typical imagery carved into the walls of mixed animals. Khayat had an active imagination and enjoyed creating smaller, domestic magical creatures in her mind. The stone guardian of the tomb was a creature that was part hawk and part monkey. Khayat’s secret masterpiece. An object of great archeological debate for centuries to come.

After that was done, after Khayat had been laid to rest, Teth-Amen stood at the doorway of the tomb and stared into the cold eyes of Sobek.

_“To war, little champion?”_

Teth-Amen nodded slowly just once.

From there, Teth-Amen carved a path that was bloody and brutal. Any mortal of high standing who had loyalty to the now dead pharaoh joined him in death. For the first time in a hundred years, Khandaq was freed from Egyptian rule. It was...bittersweet. Those who hadn’t liked how the Egyptian monarchy ran things ran to Khandaq, some getting cut down by Egyptian soldiers on the way over. There was so much death that the sands ran red.

Teth-Amen’s reign as Champion-Emperor of Khandaq lasted for two months. He spent the entire time span either patrolling the border or helping out somewhere. Unknown to a lot of history books you’ve probably read, Teth-Amen made having slaves and practicing the trade illegal in Ancient Khandaq. If you were a slaver, you’d be killed. If you were a slave, you were freed. Made it very attractive to escape there if you were a slave. However, if your whole country relied upon slavery, like most of the ancient world...Khandaq was the country of the insane. They probably don’t talk about Teth in your history class yet, but in my history courses, there was one way that the victors wrote about him that always stuck out to me.

They described him as a mad dog, with blood boiling in his mouth, boiling so much that the blood would turn white and drool from his lips. The medieval Christian scribes that would write down what stories of him survived would theorize that he’d been touched by the devil.

And that vitriol was partially founded by the terror they had at him freeing and protecting slaves. There were other causes for that, very real battles he fought in during those two months that stuck in the memories of storytellers to come. He really did rip out eyeballs with his fingers. He really did break Nabu’s body to the point that Nabu’s spirit retreating into his golden helmet was the only way to keep living. And yes, he really did charge into the heart of Ancient Egypt in order to steal Sobek’s sacred crocodile from Shedet. It was not a woman, like the medieval French court romance writers would have you believe. It was an actual-factual crocodile. A 15 foot and several hundred pound crocodile.

Sorry, I did a large project on that for a thesis project, years ago now and I just get...excited about it. Stop giving me reporter eyes, bud, I’m refocusing.

Teth-Amen’s fall came during the day. Around noon, if Teth’s to be believed, but I think he gave me that detail to make things more dramatic. And before you think of some kind of Hollywood Wild West showdown, with Teth-Amen at one end of a battlefield and the heroes of the day at the other, it was more of a large army against army sprawl on the ground and demigod clash above the armies. I know this fight best from the point of view of Aryeh.

Aryeh was among the chaos on the ground. My grandfather told the story that Aryeh was made a captain in Teth-Amen’s army from the wisdom of Teth-Amen, though Teth would say it was more for the sheer calm Aryeh radiated. Even in the messy fight where man fought man, steel coming together like rapid currents in the ocean, Aryeh was almost supernaturally calm. He brought his khopesh down into the shoulder of the soldier he’d been fighting, then ducked under the spear of another soldier. He retrieved his khopesh, ready to strike again when a wave of mystical energy washed over the armies. No one could raise their hand against their fellow man.

Aryeh was one of the few that looked up. He could see his Champion-Emperor alight with lightning and golden fire, looking like the fury of the sky itself as he threw one of the winged warriors to the ground with a roar. Teth-Amen raised his hands and lightning rained down on both armies. Aryeh closed his eyes and prayed, hoping his Champion-Emperor could hear the prayer, promising to name his firstborn child after Teth-Amen if the gods-powered Champion spared him. He repeated the prayer again and again, muttering turning to screaming as he heard others scream in pain around him. Eventually, he felt gentle hands on his shoulders and he hoped with all his being that it was his Champion-Emperor.

It was the Wizard, with sad blue eyes. Aryeh surveyed the area around him and only saw the winged warriors of Horus still standing.

With a sudden start, Aryeh realized that he was the only mortal soldier still standing.

* * *

“That barely told me anything of what actually happened in that battle.”

“I know. I think it’s just important for later for you to hear the version my grandfather told me before I give you my patched version.”

“Why? To give context for you later?”

The woman smiled. “Exactly. So, Jon, what do you know from that version?”

Jon looked down at the legal pad where he was taking notes. He bit the end of the pen before making some additional notes. He slowly answered, “Mr. Adam was a Champion-Emperor for two months. He made Aryeh, the man he met during the kheft thing, a captain in his army. Why not a general? Why just a captain?”

“Good questions,” the woman answered. “What else?”

“There was a big battle the day Mr. Adam was sealed into the amulet he was in,” Jon answered. “Aryeh was there. He didn’t die when Mr. Adam hit a lot of people with lightning. Was he hit with the lightning?”

The woman smiled, the smile reaching her brown eyes. “My grandfather didn’t know,” she answered, “but I’ve been told that he was.”

“Then how did he _survive?”_ Jon asked, brows furrowed. “Did the prayer _work?”_

“Put a pin in those questions,” the woman answered and Jon underlined it in his notes. “How many people do you think Teth killed, from that telling?”

“Well...there were two armies,” Jon answered. “But ancient armies...so less like two armies today and maybe...two hundred people?”

“You’re forgetting the people he killed before that day, directly and indirectly. I did say that the sands ran red with blood.”

“I thought that was just...fancy poetry description.” His eyes widened as the woman slowly shook her head. “Like...that much blood? All the sand in the area?”

“Not quite _all_ the sand,” she answered. “But...there were definite large swaths of sand that were red in Khandaq. There’s a reason why one of the easier ways to identify Khandaq in ancient texts — I mean that in the archeological sense, meaning imagery on artifacts, words in written goods, oral histories passed down — is to see if the sand is tinted red instead of the normal gold or yellow sands. It is a _powerful_ image that’s caught as many imaginations as the image of Teth ripping eyeballs out.”

Jon shifted in his chair, looking at his notes. “It’s...it’s kind of hard to um...think of him doing that. This is the same Mr. Adam that y’know...”

“Got you off of that skyscraper when you first started flying on your own and didn’t tell your dad about it?”

Jon flushed red. “I didn’t realize how high I was and I just...freaked.”

“No judgement here,” the woman chuckled. “I get it. Both the flight thing and the ‘hard to think of this Teth-Amen guy being the Teth-Adam you know today’ thing. They really feel like different people. Like brothers rather than the same person. Or like one of those superhero soap operas, where at some point Teth-Amen gets split into two people like one’s Teth-Adam and he’s got all the murder-happy bits that we just threw a magnifying glass over and the other’s like...Theo Adams, who’s got all the intelligent and inquisitive bits.” She hummed, tilting her head. “Fun mental image. Anyway, that’s not the case. Let’s see if I can answer some of your questions with the patched version of the story. Maybe by the time I’m done telling this bit, Teth will be back and-” she smirked at Jon “I am _dying_ to hear how he describes his first meeting with me.” The woman clears her throat. “Okay. The Fall of Teth-Amen and the Battle of Asco, take two: the patched version.”

* * *

So, let’s start with the details my grandfather didn’t know. Teth-Amen had headaches, massive ones, daily for the first three days after burying Khayat. His gods weren’t entirely happy with his decisions: mainly, the one to take a step back.

Shu, in his fashion, was...supportive. _“Do champions in these contracts always act without consulting their gods or is it just the men? As a father, I understand the paternal instinct, but have you considered the full strength of going to war against Kemet?”_

_“You left the instruments of rule with the pharaoh’s body, you should have_ **_taken them._ ** _You could’ve taken your rightful place as ruler of Kemet. You’ll have to get them back when we win this war.”_ Heru was like a disappointed dad — anger masking some deep down pride. A mess of mixed signals.

Amon was a storm of emotions, enough to really drown out Teth-Amen’s own. He whispered in Teth-Amen’s mind, _“She died scared.”_ The whisper rattled against Mehen’s scales, thundering through Teth-Amen’s mind in a stampede of syllables. Whatever trains of thought that Teth-Amen had were derailed so thoroughly that all that was left was dust.

_“You left WITHOUT MY IBISTICK.”_ Zehuti wasn’t a fan of Teth-Amen’s dramatic exit. His shrieking cut through Amon’s whisper.

Aten...Aten was cold. It could’ve been the shade of being indoors, but...well, it’s hard to tell with Aten.

_“Quiet.”_ Teth-Amen could feel Mehen’s scales in his mind and in his body, against his skin and down in his bones. The storm was brought to rest in Teth-Amen’s mind and he could finally hear his own thoughts. _“The people are our charges. The pharaoh failed the people, thus he earned his death. We had to put Khayat to rest. We_ **_all_ ** _agreed to that. And we all agreed that what Kemet has become must be cut, like the weed it is. With a pharaoh that allows men to cut children down, who plays at being a godling. With a Champion who ignores the gods when they are insulted by men who play at being a_ **_god._ ** _Piras may have cheated the terms of the contract she made with us, putting it on a mortal who did not consent, but we are here_ **_now._ ** _We have all agreed to work with Teth-Amen. I ask you all now: what is_ **_our_ ** _goal? Our duty is to the people. Our goal must be around that.”_

The others began talking all at the same time and were all met with Mehen’s angry hiss until they went quiet.

Shu spoke up first. _“I want nothing. I am here for the experience: Piras offered me the experience of companionship. I...I do not get to speak with others much. I am the air: most think themselves too good to talk to someone invisible despite the fact that everyone, even the high and mighty gods of the sky, need me to exist.”_

_“I have made my desires clear,”_ Heru replied. _“I want relevancy. I would have gotten it, had Teth-Amen taken the throne of Kemet.”_

_“He has the throne of Khandaq in all but name currently. That can be changed very quickly, considering the ruler is a spoiled child,”_ Mehen replied. _“For now, know you have relevancy through that.”_

_“I...that is true.”_ Heru fell silent a moment. _“Then I want Khandaq to be a kingdom greater than Kemet. Than any that ever existed or will exist.”_

_“This can be done,”_ Teth-Amen spoke up. _“I want Khandaq to be better than Kemet. For the people.”_

Amon’s energy was slow, afraid of drowning out Teth-Amen’s good intentions again. He gave Teth-Amen flashes of images: a man Teth-Amen knew instinctively as his biological father smiling. Smiling in different places, hunched over maps and tables in dim cave-like rooms and in the sun’s light as it set over the Nile. Amon took Teth-Amen’s memories of ambition from his days as a slave and echoed them in Teth-Amen now. _“Aye, but I would rather have ambitions to sate me than having nothing and starve on more levels than just the physical,”_ Teth-Amen heard his own voice echo in his head, looking as if they were said from the lips of his father.

Zehuti hummed. _“I want my Ibistick. I want our people, since we’re so people-y, to be the most educated in the world. No forcing illiteracy for power.”_

Aten said nothing, as was Aten’s custom.

_“Alright,”_ Mehen replied. _“Now that you have stopped being children, you have communicated. Teth-Amen, do you understand what we want from here?”_

_“We shall build Khandaq larger and better than it ever has been,”_ Teth-Amen answered. _“We will educate our people. We will break chains of all kinds, freeing slaves and educating them. We will be a country of unchained ambition.”_

Amon filled Teth-Amen’s chest with warmth as Heru replied, _“Then we have our new contract. Piras may have bound us together initially, but now...”_

_“Now we have a proper one,”_ Zehuti replied, his tone the most serious that Teth-Amen had ever heard from him. _“A consenting host, six gods in agreement, and a shared goal. The truth that we all agree upon: we are not Champion of Magic.”_

_“We are People’s Champion,”_ Mehen replied.


End file.
